The Love Trap (1929)

Genres - Comedy  |   Sub-Genres - Romantic Comedy  |   Run Time - 63 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Review by Bruce Eder

The Love Trap was one of those odd hybrid silent/talkie productions from the transition years in film -- the first 45 minutes are silent and then, upon a reel-change at that point coming out of a fade-to-black, the film resumes as a talkie. Director William Wyler fares far better in the talking scenes than most of his peers of the era did, moving the dialogue along in surprisingly spritely fashion in the sound portion of this movie, which comprises the last 25 minutes of The Love Trap. The silent portion is tighter and edited and played more briskly, but when the sound portion comes in at 45 minutes, the slackening is only incremental -- Laura La Plante, Neil Hamilton, and Norman Trevor cope fairly well with the demands of acting with sound, and Wyler's camera is downright balletic in its movements compared with most of the examples of early talkies. The Love Trap's only real flaw is its relatively slight seeming story, which is more a result of the seven decades that have elapsed since it was made -- it's actually a fairly suggestive and racy comedy for its time, with enough of a light touch to make it come off as a fluffy comedy by the end. Wyler would, of course, get better and faster as he advanced into the sound era, but this was a good way into the new medium.